Dr Mike Bassous is general secretary of the Bible Society of Lebanon, which has been providing food, shelter and medical care for people in refugee camps along the Lebanon-Syria border. The Society is now one of Lebanon’s major relief agencies and its aid work is part of what Dr Bassous calls its 'holistic ministry'. Dr Bassous, who recently toured Australia, discusses the flow of refugees into Lebanon and the effect it might have on Lebanese politics.

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Andrew West: Is religion a matter of belief or belonging? We’ll be exploring how that question arises in the Middle East and in Australia. It’s the Religion and Ethics Report, hello from me, Andrew West.

Later in the program we’ll look at the results of a major study of Australian religious practice. One of the most interesting findings is that a sense of belonging to a congregation or a faith community matters more than belief—at least initially. But let’s begin in the Middle East. We’ve spent a fair bit of time this year looking at the unfolding tragedy in Syria. A civil war there has been increasingly religious in its overtones. Refugees are pouring across the borders into Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon and that’s where we want to go now.

Lebanon itself has had a difficult recent history with a civil war for much of the 1970s and ’80s. Muslims, Christians and Druze were all displaced and many dispersed across the world, including to Australia. For two decades though, an imperfect but workable peace has held among those religious communities that stayed. So could war in neighbouring Syria upset that delicate balance? One man who’s in the thick of it, is Dr Mike Bassous. He’s General Secretary of the Bible Society of Lebanon. The Bible Society has actually been very active in providing food and shelter and medical care for people in the refugee camps along the Lebanon-Syria border. In fact it’s now one of Lebanon’s major relief agencies.

Well, Mike Bassous has been touring Australia. Dr Bassous how many refugees are we talking about who’ve fled Syria for Lebanon? I mean, do we have any numbers?

Mike Bassous: The latest numbers show that 122,000 refugees are registered in the United Nations departments. That does not mean it is the real figure. There are probably about the same amount of refugees coming into Lebanon that have not registered. So we’re talking close to about a quarter of a million of refugees—that’s only in Lebanon.

Andrew West: And how does a small country like Lebanon, a small but very tightly populated country, handle this great wave of refugees?

Mike Bassous: Well, it’s a challenge but let’s put it this way, refugees has always been part of the Middle East. A few years back we were dealing with Iraqi refugees also coming to Syria and into Lebanon as an exit to go into other countries. And so it’s a matter of just having to deal with givens. Syrian refugees feel that Lebanon is…at the moment, the roles have changed; Lebanese used to take refuge in Syria in the past decade or so. And so now it’s the other way around and the country is struggling with trying to serve them. But I’m sure that several NGOs including the Bible Society have involved in doing that.

Andrew West: You’re a Christian leader in Lebanon, are we talking here mainly about Christian refugees coming into Lebanon?

Mike Bassous: There are no numbers to indicate how many of the refugees are Christians…

Andrew West: But anecdotally, what do, I mean…

Mike Bassous: I think, because there are options to go to either Jordan or Turkey, I think the majority of the refugees heading to Lebanon might be Christians. Because they might…they will feel that there are more Christian families—there’s the relationship between the church between the two countries, and there is the relationship between families between the two countries. So I would assume the majority would be Christians.

Andrew West: Yes, and we’re talking about a very close proximity. I mean, Damascus and Beirut is something like three hours’ difference. So it’s the neighbourhood.

Mike Bassous: Yes.

Andrew West: Syria itself is a very religiously diverse country, especially for religious minorities. So who is fleeing? I mean, what Christian groups, what non-Christian groups are fleeing?

Mike Bassous: I think those who are seeking refuges in other countries are those who have lost either a loved one or a home. I do not think it’s one colour of people that are leaving the country but…or one culture or one religion, but rather those who have been affected by this conflict. And so it’s not easy to assume that it is one group, such as the Alawis or the Sunnis or the Christians, but rather several groups affected by this conflict—and most of them living close to the borders of the countries they are seeking refuge to. And they just simply cross the border to get some safety.

Andrew West: How much has this been an upheaval for these religious communities, particularly the Christian communities because there is a 2,000-year-old connection for Christians to much of Syria?

Mike Bassous: Interesting question. Christians in Syria and Lebanon claim to be Antiochian Christians and that’s the first reference of the church in the Bible—Antioch. And so they’ve been around there for 2,000 years. In my opinion Christians will unfortunately pay the highest price of the upheaval in Syria. You may ask why. I say, look at what happened in Iraq. Look at what happened to the Christians in Iraq. The number of Christians in Iraq have dropped to half. The half that remained there had to be internally displaced. And so the fear is that Christians in Syria—and they number almost two million—will end up being diminished, marginalised, displaced.

Andrew West: Well yes, an academic at the University of Notre Dame, Professor Joseph Amar who is an expert in this area, he wrote recently in Commonweal magazine that Syria is poised for the kind of tribal and sectarian bloodbath that followed the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq but on a much broader scale. I mean, does that ring true to you?

Mike Bassous: I believe it does. The impact of tribalism and patriarchalism in our part of the world supersedes nationalism. And so once the national entity starts falling apart we go back 100 years, or a few hundred years back, to the tribe, and then the conflicts that go along with the tribes and unfortunately Christians are not a tribe; they’re a people of faith and they will be the losing party. They’re the last people to usually seek arms. They will be the losing party again if there is not a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Andrew West: There is a suggestion that’s been out there that would effectively take Syria back, sort of, 50, 60 years to a kind of settlement where religious populations were quarantined in different areas of the country, and that you might get some vague peace settlement. Does that seem a logical or viable proposition to you?

Mike Bassous: This probably goes back to the Ottoman Empire rule when each religion had its own what we call, millet, and the head of the religious group would, sort of, rule that area or that region and he would be the reference for that region. I doubt that very much. I think at the moment we are looking at a larger division in Syria, mainly based on mainline religions, if it comes to that, but not into smaller pockets.

Andrew West: So you don’t see a re-creation of—I think it was as recently as the French occupation of Syria—you don’t see that re-creation of that system?

Mike Bassous: No, I think the demographics have changed since then. And it will be different types of alliances that will be forming these power struggles within today’s Syria.

Andrew West: When you say the demographics have changed, is that because the Alawite population, the Christian population, the two major minority groups, are simply spread too far across the country, they’re no longer concentrated?

Mike Bassous: Yes. They’re no longer concentrated in one geographic spot. And of course we’re forgetting there’s a huge group of Kurdish original people living in the north and east, and so the demographics are simply changed; it’ll be more difficult to look at it into two or three parts.

Andrew West: Professor Amar, in this article, also said that Lebanon had historically been a haven for Christian minorities. You’re born and raised in Lebanon; you’re a son of the soil in Lebanon. Why do you think Lebanon has been a haven for Christian minorities?

Mike Bassous: Lebanon has historically been founded by the Maronite Church, by Christians. The president today by law has to be a Christian. Christians all over the Middle East look towards Lebanon as the upholder and the gatekeeper for Christian presence in the Middle East. While the numbers of Christian population in Lebanon is diminishing, the impact is still very strong there.

Andrew West: What is it roughly now? I read 40 per cent of the population.

Mike Bassous: It’s about one-third. It’s about one-third of the population. Yet they still hold key positions in the country and extension between resident Christians and those in diaspora is incredible.

Andrew West: Well, Australia being a perfect example…

Mike Bassous: There you go.

Andrew West: …of a very strong Lebanese Maronite diaspora here.

Lebanon, as you said, has quite a strong confessional form of politics. People…and it is a democracy, and people tend to vote according to their religious affiliation; does that work though?

Mike Bassous: Well it has worked in the past where the…if we go into only number, democracy, you know, Christians will lose out. But when we’re looking at religiously based democracy, where each group elects their religious affiliated politicians, you’re trying to keep a balance. It’s a delicate balance; I don’t admit it’s perfect, but it’s a delicate balance to keep things going in this country. Now, you may say this is not democracy as we understand it in the west. Yes, I agree. But it’s a balanced democracy that has worked well in the east. And in the east it’s not about numbers really; it’s about impact.

Andrew West: Yes, I’m just wondering though whether you feel that Lebanon could at some stage evolve into a more western-style democracy where people vote perhaps on the basis of political ideology, and that can cross religious boundaries?

Mike Bassous: I strongly doubt that will ever happen. People are very religious; let me use this word: they belong more than they believe. So it’s about belonging rather than believing. So if I’m born a Maronite, I belong to the Maronite…this is my belonging. Now if you ask a person what do they believe in, oh that’s a difficult question. But the belonging is so strong in Lebanon; I am born a Sunni, I belong to the Sunni religion. And so that belonging, far away from believing I’m afraid, keeps the issue at hand that, this is where I belong and this is where I’m going to cast my vote.

Andrew West: Well Dr Mike Bassous, I appreciate your time. Thank you for coming into the studio.

Mike Bassous: Thank you Andrew.

Andrew West: Mike Bassous is Secretary of the Bible Society of Lebanon. This is the Religion and Ethics Report here on RN with me, Andrew West.